Marc's Blog

5 Facts That Will Change Your View Of Blogging

December 4, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

The definition of a blog has rapidly changed. What was once nothing more than an online diary is now the must-have platform for any business. Blogging has transformed from a cocoon to a butterfly and then to an eagle.

Blogging has defied many limits that had a stronghold just a few decades ago.

Our view of blogging is constantly changing with every new day. My view of blogging is always changing based on what I do and what I observe. Out of everything that has impacted my view of blogging, these five facts changed my view of blogging the most.

I am sure they will change the way you view blogging too. You won’t want to miss this list.

#1: Your Blog Is A Novel

That means two things. The first thing is that your blog is going to have a boatload of content. Right now, if I took all of the content on this blog and turn it into a book, it would be over 1,000 pages long.

Part of the reason is that bloggers think of a variety of ideas and turn them into blog posts. The way most bloggers approach blogging is to write about a common topic without structure from one blog post to the next.

What makes people reading today’s blog post then want to read yesterday’s blog post and eagerly wait for the next blog post?

And more specifically, what allows this interest to remain the same regardless of which page your visitor starts on?

When optimized properly, a blog can be more attention grabbing than a novel. That’s because regardless of whether a visitor is reading your first blog post or your 100th blog post, that visitor can still find interesting content that provides a proper transition.

If you start reading a novel at Chapter 10, the novel won’t be as attention grabbing since you missed some of the important stuff. The first blog post a visitor reads on your blog, regardless of when it was published, is (for that person) the first page of your novel.

So how do you transition from one blog post to the next. The answer is to briefly mention the previous blog post and then end with a teaser to the upcoming blog post. No one does this better than Bryan Harris:

Bryan Harris Blogging Strategy

And now for the teaser to the next blog post.

Blog Post Teaser

I am immediately (but non-aggressively) presented with another option and am then told what will come next.

All of his blog posts follow this structure, so it’s easy to get stuck on his blog and lose track of the time. In 2016, you may see something similar on my blog.

#2: Popular Blogs Are Starting To Turn Into Picture Books

When I first wrote blog posts for this blog, I didn’t want to include any pictures. It’s a good thing I changed my mind.

For a while now, I have been posting a picture at the top of all of my blog posts. The picture presents a lead-in that gives people an idea of what they can expect from the blog post. The pictures also generate more social shares for my blog posts.

In light of a common pattern and a 2016 resolution, I am trying something different. I am making it a point to include more pictures throughout my blog posts. I

The human mind processes an images 60,000 times faster than text. That’s powerful.

I like to read several social media blogs to enhance my knowledge. Over the years, these blog posts continue providing valuable content. What I also noticed is that over time, these blog posts also turned into mini picture books.

Some of these blog posts now have over 10 pictures within the blog post. But social media experts aren’t the only ones with picture book style blog posts.

BuzzFeed was built on those types of blog posts. Most of their blog posts are only a few hundred words and stuffed with pictures and GIFs. And it’s been working quite nicely for them.

I recently wrote a guest post for BlueLog. I heard about BlueLog after I wrote a guest post for Jeff Bullas. For both Jeff Bullas and BlueLog, I had to write guest posts that included several pictures throughout the post.

If I didn’t have those extra pictures, my guest posts wouldn’t have been published.

The top people in the game understand the value of pictures. They are providing value in a picture book style. If you are not writing blog posts with multiple pictures per blog post, then you are missing out on engaging with your readers in a more powerful way.

#3: A Successful Blog Is A Team Effort

This is true about so many areas of life, and especially blogging. You need a team around you to grow. Part of the reason is that your team can increase your blog traffic.

When my guest post got published on BlueLog, the people who worked for BlueLog tweeted my guest post several times throughout the day. All of these people have thousands of followers which meant the blog post got a nice pinch of traffic on the day it got published.

When I wrote my guest post for Jeff Bullas, I learned about who helps make his blog a success. He has an editor who proofreads the content, and guest bloggers like me provide him with free content.

If Jeff managed his blog without any help, it would be a very different experience. With Jeff in mind, I decided to ask for help. More specifically, I outsourced parts of the process.

Now I never create the picture that goes on the top of my blog posts. Someone else does that for me. Someone else is growing my Twitter audience by implementing my tactics. Someone else is scheduling my tweets and promoting my content.

If I didn’t have all of this help, I wouldn’t have enough time to explore the opportunities that I am exploring now.

#4: Blog Readers Are Busy Skimmers

Let’s face reality.

When a blogger writes a 1,000+ word blog post (much like this one), readers skim through and look for the most important stuff.

So is it a waste to write these long blog posts? The answer is no. Some people do read through the entire blog post, but most readers are skimmers.

What you have to do is write a blog post for skimmers. Make it easy for your readers to find the key points. For example, using the bold font makes it easy for some of your content to stand out.

Using shorter paragraphs will also make it easier for people to read your blog posts. People don’t want the giant block of text. They want tiny paragraphs.

I once had a policy of no more than five lines per paragraph. Now I’m looking at a maximum of three lines per paragraph. These ridiculously short paragraphs, although numerous, are easier to read than a block of text.

What else works? Using pictures. It’s the main reason more blog posts are turning into picture books. Even if you were just skimming through this blog post and didn’t bother reading this paragraph, I bet my lucky horseshoe that this got your attention.

Picture Attracting Attention

That’s what pictures do. They are much easier for the human mind to process than text. As a result, you get to keep the attention of your readers for a longer period of time.

#5: The Competition Is Thick

Nothing new. But the way you interpret old information can lead to new discoveries.

There are thousands of bloggers doing the same thing as you. You need differentiating factors that give your content a unique voice. That way, your readers will recognize you within the crowd. They’ll remember to return to your blog.

Thick competition also provides more opportunities. Most people think of competitors as bitter enemies. However, you can team up with your competition so you pull each other upward. Writing blog posts about each other will result in more awareness for both of you.

In thick competition, you need to learn how to stand out. However, you also have to learn how your competition can help you and why they would want to help you. That way, you can both work towards a common goal.

In Conclusion

The blogging world changes as the days go by. New possibilities are created and more methods get discovered. The way you view blogging impacts the way you write and structure your blog posts.

It is important to view blogging in light of some of the most important changes that have taken place in blogging. Changing the way you view blogging based on new things you come across will allow you to create a strong view that helps you propel your blog forward.

What are your thoughts about these blogging facts? Which one changed your view of blogging the most? Do you have any nuggets of information that would change the way we view blogging? Sound off in the comments section below.

10 Overlooked Factors Of Productivity

December 2, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

I’m going to take a wild guess and say that this is not the first productivity related blog post that you are reading. I have probably read through thousands of them in my lifetime and wouldn’t be surprised if you do the same.

Most of these blog posts talk about the same things: write down goals, make sure you wake up early, and not procrastinating. That’s the tone of most productivity related blog posts.

So I decided to write a productivity blog post that has NOTHING to do with writing down goals, making sure you wake up earlier, and not procrastinating.

Stripping out those parts of the blog post originally made it more challenging to write a blog post like this. However, in this challenge, I was able to come across certain factors of productivity that almost no one talks about.

I have a feeling that there will be at least one tip on this list that you haven’t heard before.

#1: The Music That You Listen To

Music is a big part of our culture. Songs have the ability to change the way we feel and enforce different mindsets upon us. One song can leave you angry while another song can raise your spirits.

Certain songs can increase your productivity by giving you more motivation. As a New Yorker, Empire State Of Mind is my go-to song for boosting my productivity. I listen to it when I feel my productivity is dipping.

After listening to the song, I can go back to work more productive than ever.

When you are doing your work, don’t turn on the radio. You never know what song will come on the radio and most of them will distract you in some way or the other. Instead of listening to songs on the radio as you work, listen to focus noises.

I’m talking about forest noises, rushing water, and other focus noises of that nature. There are many focus noise videos on YouTube designed to boost your productivity.

YouTube Focus Noise Videos

Some of these videos are over 10 hours long. The purpose isn’t for you to watch the entire video. It’s for you to stay productive while the focus noises are playing.

#2: How You Handle Stress

We all get some level of stress. For some of us, stress is rare and doesn’t ruin our day. For other people, stress is frequent and day-destroying. As the workload gets more challenging, the way you respond determines how productive you are.

Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond. The reason you have probably heard that statement many times is because it’s true.

The way to handle stress from your workload is to simply attack the workload. The more time you spend thinking about what stresses you out, the more the stress will build.

If something is stressing you out, just get it done. NOW.

#3: How Often You Exercise

Exercising is one of the most important parts of life. I could have said productivity instead of life, but exercising helps you in so many ways other than productivity.

When I went from middle school to high school, I thought my business would collapse because of the added workload. That was before I even joined the cross country team and got home at 6 pm every day instead of 3 pm.

So at that point, I thought I’d just wait until the summer before doing anything big for my business. What happened?

My business soared contrary to my logic.

As the school work got more challenging, my business soared even more. No, it wasn’t because I got more homework that my school did better. Just making that clear in case one of my teachers reads this particular blog post.

It’s challenging to pinpoint one reason for any business’ success since it’s usually a combination of so many factors. I like to think running every day has a significant part in the equation.

The reason is that exercising every day strengthens two things:

Your muscles (yeah, no surprise there)
Your SUCCESS muscles (repeat please)

After analyzing successful people, watching my business grow, and running every day, I came to a conclusion. The mindset of a consistent runner is the same mindset as a successful person.

Always striving to achieve better results/times. Always looking for a way to do the same job better. Always showing up and putting in the work. Having a team around you.

In that last paragraph, you don’t know whether I’m talking about how to run faster or how to become more successful. That’s because they are both so connected.

Not specifically running, but exercising in general. Running in competitions adds that extra flair though because you get your time, and have something to gauge yourself against.

Even if you exercise with some simply stretches for 10 minutes each day, you are doing yourself (and your productivity) a lot of good.

#4: Your Health

You are what you eat. Food affects your thinking and the way you view the world. We have a different view of our work when we stuff ourselves with French Fries and when we eat a tasty, healthy steak.

Some food makes us want to tackle any work in front of us while other food makes us lazy. Becoming more aware of how you react to certain foods will help you make better food decisions for your health and your productivity.

In addition to becoming more aware of what you eat, adding certain foods to your daily eating habits will boost your productivity.

Certain foods like salmon have been proven to increase productivity (but salmon is one of the best super foods out there. It also makes you happier). Here are some other foods that make us more productive.

#5: The Technology You Use

Ever think of the computer, tablet, or smartphone you are using to read this very blog post? Ever think that your device is aging?

It’s something we don’t often think about. The only time we pay attention to it is when our devices get very slow. Once your device gets very slow, and that same device is a few years old, it’s a sign. You need a new device.

After four years, my Mac Book Pro started getting problems. Safari wouldn’t work at all every other day. Before that, I noticed my computer was getting slower.

A slower device nowadays can be detrimental to productivity. Don’t settle with a slow device. Get a new device so you can accomplish your work in lightning fast speeds.

Slow technology doesn’t only result in a decline in productivity. It also results in an increase in frustration. I made the choice to get a new Mac Book. Now I can get my tasks done faster.

#6: The Breaks You Take And Their Frequency

You must take breaks throughout the day to be productive. If you send too much time working, your productivity will naturally dip over time.

Taking a quick 10-20 minute break every 90 minutes is the ideal way to get as many productive minutes in as possible.

If you are pressed for time, just listen to a 3-10 minute song that motivates you to get stuff done. This isn’t procrastinating. Taking breaks allows you to be more productive in the long-run and avoid being the stickler at work. No one likes those.

#7: The Amount Of Stuff On Your Desk

Your desk gives you an idea of what your mind looks like. If you have a cluttered desk, chances are you have a cluttered mind. You forget to accomplish tasks within their deadlines, and all of the workload stresses you out.

A clean desk indicates a clean state of mind. It’s easier for you to accomplish tasks within their deadlines and do more than the minimum. The way you organize your physical presence affects how your mind is organized.

If you discover that notebooks and papers are accumulating on your desk, then get rid of them. Even if you designate one room and fill it with clutter, as long as you don’t see the clutter as you work, that clutter doesn’t matter.

It won’t impact your productivity in the same way a cluttered desk will.

#8: The Chair You Sit In

This is the one tip that I confidently believe you’ve never seen anywhere else. If you have seen it before, I want a link to the article.

I have worked while sitting in a variety of chairs throughout my life. But that doesn’t make me stand out at all. We have all worked while sitting in a variety of chairs.

When I took SATs, I would sit on multiple chairs in the room until I found the perfect chair for myself. Most of the time, it wouldn’t take more than two tries for me to find the perfect chair before the testing began.

If I moved, and the chair moved with me, I simply got up and went to another chair. Rocking back and forth wasn’t on my To-Do List for taking the SAT.

Broken Chair — Here is an extreme example of a bad chair. What would happen to your productivity if you sat on this?

I look for the chairs with the cushioned seats. These chairs feel more comfortable, and it’s easier for me to focus. Sitting on a wooden or un-cushioned chair doesn’t work for me as well.

At the same time, a chair that is too comfortable will decrease your productivity. At one point, I chose to do my work on a chair with wheels. There were two problems with that choice.

The first problem is that if I slightly moved the chair, my entire body would slightly move. I had to keep the chair still so I could write blog posts. The chairs without wheels don’t give me that problem.

The second problem is that I am a teenager. When I got stuck on an idea, I would spin around and around to pass the time. In the end, I would only think of a good idea when I stopped spinning on the chair and came back to reality.

#9: Your Working Pattern

The way you work determines how much you get done. Establishing a consistent work flow for yourself will make it effortless for you to get work done.

What is a work flow? It’s simply a series of daily rituals you follow that let you know you are on the right track. Once you follow these daily rituals, it will be easier for you to tunnel-vision and focus on getting ONE thing done effectively.

Focusing on getting the daily rituals right eventually turns those daily rituals into a habit. In other words, you are turning productivity and achievement into habits. That’s powerful.

#10: The People Who You Surround Yourself With

The people you surround yourself with impact who you become. If these people are below your level of excellence, you will find yourself stagnant or on the decline.

On the other hand, if you surround yourself with people who are better than you, then you challenge yourself to become better.

When I run, I always run with the people who are better than me. That way, I get more out of each practice and run better at the meets.

I started becoming successful on Udemy when I teamed up with instructors who are better than me. And if you’ve been following a lot of marketers, you’ll notice that they all promote each other and are friends with one another.

Surrounding yourself with people who challenge you to become better will result in you becoming better. You will become more productive and accomplish your goals faster than ever before.

In Conclusion

Productivity is important for anyone—the employee, employer, entrepreneur, parent, and everyone else. While there are the usual methods of boosting productivity, there are also overlooked factors that can also increase your productivity.

Now that you are aware of these overlooked factors of boosting productivity, the next step is to become more aware of how these overlooked factors play out in your life.

Be more observant of the people you hang out with, the music you listen to, what you eat, and how often you exercise. That way, you will know to make small changes that can have a dramatic impact on your productivity.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you know of any other overlooked methods of boosting productivity? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Quickly Get A Ton Of YouTube Views

November 30, 2015 by Marc Guberti 1 Comment

YouTube recently changed the analytics dashboard of every channel. The change made one thing clear: YouTube cares more about minutes watched than the number of views a video has. That makes sense. If a video has over 1 million views but the average view duration is just two seconds, then there’s a problem.

There is now a greater need to create lengthy, high value YouTube videos that grab people’s attention. But even after you create those videos, how do you get the ball rolling? Just because you create an awesome video does not mean YouTube will promote it to the masses.

You need to get the views on your own, but not just any views. Quality views are more important. You want people to watch as much of your YouTube video as possible. So how do you get more YouTube views and minutes watched? That’s what this blog post is all about.

Create Videos Consistently And Frequently

The more often you add videos to your channel, the more often your subscribers will check for new videos. Subscribers who like your videos naturally want to watch more of your videos. If you are consistent and frequent with new video uploads, then your subscribers will know to look at your channel a few times each week.

If you consistently publish videos once every six months, then it’s more difficult for you to grow a devoted fan base.

Even if you don’t have many subscribers, it is important to get comfortable with the process now. Not only will this strategy help you grow your overall audience, but consistently and frequently publishing YouTube videos won’t be a problem once you have thousands of subscribers.

Minutes Watched

YouTube changed the entire analytics dashboard to reflect the importance of minutes watched. We as YouTubers need to change our strategy too. Instead of short videos, it is becoming more important to produce lengthy videos.

One of my most recent YouTube videos was over 45 minutes long. I’m sure people are thinking, “Who would ever watch that entire video?” The truth is that not many people watch it for all 45 minutes.

However, my average viewer watches the YouTube video for over 10 minutes. Minutes watched is a valuable metric, and to get 10 minutes per video is a game changer. One of my other videos about scheduling pins with ViralWoot is about five minutes long.

Even if one of my viewers watches the entire ViralWoot video, the total minutes watched will be less than the average minutes watched for my 45 minute YouTube video.

The short-term results are difficult to see. However, in the long-term, your video is gaining an edge on YouTube’s search engine based on minutes watched. Soon enough, your video will get more views from YouTube’s search engine.

Turbocharge Your Videos With AdWords

For as little as $1 per day, you can get over 100 views for your YouTube video. Add a few extra zeroes next to the price per day and the number of views per day, and the possibilities become clear. Spending $10 per day results in 1,000 views per day.

Of course, your video needs to be optimized to get those types of results. Some tinkering with AdWords may eventually result in an optimized ad that gets $0.01 views for your YouTube video.

AdWords is a very reliable platform to promote your YouTube videos.

Breaking Even With AdWords

The video I currently promote with AdWords promotes my writing course. In addition to the social proof, the AdWords campaign also results in the sales of my training courses. You can break even by promoting YouTube videos that promote your products or landing pages. There are other options too, but products and landing pages seem to be the most popular.

Once you discover how to profit from AdWords, it’s just a matter of feeding the beast.

Promote It To Your Audience

Regardless of how large your current audience is outside of YouTube, you can promote your YouTube video to that audience. When I publish a new YouTube video, I always send a tweet to my Twitter audience. I’ll share it on Facebook and pin it on Pinterest.

I leverage the audiences I have built on other platforms to promote my YouTube videos.

Sometimes, I will even use my email list to promote my YouTube videos. If you are willing to provide valuable videos to your YouTube audience, then you might as well share those videos with your other audiences.

If you don’t have an audience outside of YouTube, ask your friends to spread the word. Create a content marketing strategy in which you contact influencers within your niche and kindly ask them to share your YouTube video.

Many of the most successful entrepreneurs state that it takes more time to market the product than to actually create the product. The same rule applies for YouTube videos. Put in more of your time towards marketing your YouTube video than the amount of time you actually spend creating the video.

If it is not possible for you to invest time towards marketing your YouTube videos, then consider outsourcing that part of your strategy.

In Conclusion

YouTube is changing the rules of success on their platform. The change is a good one. Views are no longer the ultimatum. We now need to go after quality views and create attention-grabbing videos.

We needed to follow these rules before YouTube made its changes. However, the new changes YouTube made have emphasized these rules and put them at the forefront of importance.

What are your thoughts about minutes watched being the key metric for YouTube success? Which of these tips was your favorite? Sound off in the comments section below.

7 Reasons To Jump On Udemy Now

November 27, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Welcome to the Udemy Express. All aboard!

Okay, maybe I exaggerated that. But the main point is that Udemy is the opportunity you need to jump on now. Udemy is the main platform I devote my attention towards. The only reason the other parts of my business grow and stay afloat is because of outsourcing.

Udemy is a free platform that allows you to create and sell training courses. The way Udemy works is that they promote your course, and you split the commission 50/50. If you promote the course on your own and get a sale with one of your coupons, then you get a 97% commission.

Udemy makes it easy to create training courses, and those training courses can be highly profitable. In this blog post, I am going to share with you seven reasons why you need to get started on Udemy now:

#1: You Get To Make Revenue

This is the most obvious point, so I’ll get it over with. Udemy does a good job at promoting your course through its coupons. Once you publish a training course, you can literally get sales from Udemy without promoting the course.

Of course, you make more sales and rank higher on Udemy’s search engine if you decide to promote your own courses, but if you don’t promote your own courses, you can still make money. Some people like my friend Jerry Banfield make over $1,000 per day from Udemy sales.

#2: Free Email List Growth

Each person who gets access to one of your courses is a student. You can send email blasts to all of your students or a certain segment of the student body. Does that sound familiar? It should.

It’s just like email marketing, but for free. Email marketing with something like iContact or Aweber provides you with more capabilities, but it comes at a cost. Having 10,000 subscribers on iContact costs $79 per month. Having the same number of subscribers on Aweber costs $149 per month.

Having 10,000 students and emailing them with Udemy costs $0 per month. Not only does Udemy do the promotion for you, but you also get to save thousands of dollars by emailing your students instead of emailing your subscribers on iContact and Aweber.

I still recommend iContact and Aweber since your email list is critical, but Udemy is the ideal option for people who are starting out.

#3: Facebook Group Pages Dedicated To Udemy Promotions

Not only is Udemy a platform where you can grow a free email list, but it is a sophisticated platform with sophisticated users. There are many Facebook group pages that let you promote free coupon codes to your courses. You can choose the quantity of coupons you offer and the deadline of those coupons.

One of the best ways to get more students to your Udemy courses is by promoting the free coupons to these courses in those Facebook Group Pages. This is an easy way to get hundreds of new students on a platform that was just waiting for you.

In other words, an extra 100 subscribers. And you don’t have to pay for any of them. Some people get thousands of new students from these promotions alone. They work well, and if you effectively communicate with your students, many of the students who used the free coupon for one of your courses may decide to buy another one of your courses at the full price.

#4: Video Is A Requirement

Video is huge and Udemy is a wonderful opportunity. However, you can’t do anything with Udemy unless you start making videos. This restriction is a blessing in disguise because it makes you better at utilizing the most impactful type of content on the web.

As you get better at creating videos, you will also get better at making speeches. You will articulate yourself more clearly and learn more about your niche.

If you are not utilizing videos yet, but you want to utilize Udemy, then you will be forced to utilize video. If you don’t want to worry about lighting or are afraid of showing yourself on camera, then you can opt to use ScreenFlow/Camtasia and a good microphone for your computer.

That way, your videos are KeyNote/PowerPoint presentations with epic audio.

#5: Udemy Has A Large Student Base

While marketing will never present us with a true scenario of “create it and they will come,” Udemy comes close. With millions of students already on the platform, Udemy presents you with a massive audience.

If you do well with promoting your own course, and it performs well in Udemy’s search engine, then Udemy will kick the promotion of your course into hyper gear.

In the past, Udemy has sent email blasts to all of its users about special discounts. Imagine your course performs so well that Udemy promotes it in an email. Imagine, in other words, your course getting seen by millions of people.

The payoff is bound to be massive. And you didn’t spend any time building that audience of millions of people. Udemy did it for us (well, the instructors help out too. When people want to buy our courses but don’t have accounts, they create Udemy accounts to buy our courses).

#6: No Technical Work Required

Udemy is not a place where you have to know code and make sure the PayPal and Credit Card integration works. Udemy has all of that handled for you. All you have to worry about is creating your courses and getting them into the Udemy marketplace.

You don’t have to verify that the technology works by making $0.01 purchases of your courses over and over again until you know the technology part works.

In addition to not worrying about the technology, you also don’t have to worry about creating an affiliate program for your courses. Udemy has all of that handled for you too. They have their own affiliate program through LinkShare that all courses automatically become a part of. You get paid, the affiliate gets paid, and Udemy gets paid. Everyone wins.

If you don’t have the audience to promote your courses to, you can contact potential affiliates and have them promote the course for you. The way Udemy’s affiliate program is set up, every affiliate gets a 50% commission per sale while you and Udemy split the rest of the commission down the middle.

A 50% commission is desirable enough to get the attention of many affiliate marketers. Even if you don’t make as much per sale as you would by promoting your course with your own coupon, you still make revenue.

It is better to make some extra revenue than it is to make no extra revenue at all.

#7: YouTube and Udemy Go Hand-In-Hand

If you want to dominate YouTube, then Udemy is the right place for you to be. Many Udemy instructors who create dozens of courses become great at creating videos. This talent is visible on their YouTube channels which happen to have hundreds of videos.

These instructors can easily publish one YouTube video every day because some of them are creating 5-10 videos for their courses every day. For these people, publishing one YouTube video per day is light work.

If you take the time to create numerous Udemy courses, creating 5-10 videos per day will eventually become a comfortable habit. Then, your YouTube channel will get filled with awesome content and you will do better as an Udemy instructor.

In Conclusion

Udemy is a great opportunity, regardless of the size of your audience. While it is appealing for people with large audiences, it is especially appealing for people who have smaller audiences. Many of the most successful instructors came to Udemy before they had a large audience. These same people now have empires because of their success on Udemy.

The best way to learn about Udemy is to interact with other instructors and learn from them. That’s why I enjoy co-creating courses with other instructors (especially the ones who are more successful on Udemy than me).

Do you have any questions about utilizing Udemy? Is this your first time you have heard about Udemy or have you come across it before? Do you have a course up, and if not, do you plan on creating one? Sound off in the comments section below.

100 Social Media Tips In One Sentence Each

November 25, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Social media is a complicated tool. Once you know how to use it, social media presents one of the best opportunities for growing an audience and your business.

This blog post is a way for me to make the learning curve much easier for you. The best part is that all of these tips are one-sentence tips so they will be quick reads. Building a solid foundation for yourself is essential for you to take your social media strategy forward. Here’s the foundation:

#1: Do a little bit each day to move your social media strategy forward

#2: Be present on the top social networks (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others)

#3: Choose which social network is the best one for you and spend 80% of your social media time on that one social network

#4: Master one social network before trying to master another social network (think of mastering social networks as learning different languages)

#5: Outsource some or all of the work

#6: Post on your social networks consistently by scheduling posts with HootSuite

#7: Have a social media post calendar that identifies when social media posts for specific social networks need to get scheduled

#8: Engage with your audience

#9: Get into other conversations

#10: When a chat related to your niche is trending, join that chat and tweet with the hashtag

#11: Most of your social media posts should point back to your content (one of your blog posts, guest posts, videos, etc)

#12: Use pictures in your social media posts to boost engagement

#13: Experiment with advertising on social media (Facebook ads work the best)

#14: Utilize hashtags in your social media posts (1-2 hashtags per tweet but Instagram posts should be stuffed with seven hashtags)

#15: Promote your landing page on your social networks, and if you don’t have a landing page, create one now.

#16: Don’t over promote your products on social media

#17: Make sure your bio highlights as much about you as possible

#18: Make your bio a sentence fragment with commas and no “and” or period to list as many credentials as possible

#19: Don’t let the shiny object (i.e. a new social network) distract you from mastering your main social network

#20: Get on new social networks immediately, but don’t let those new social networks ruin what you already have going on

#21: It is ridiculously easy to gain hundreds of daily followers on the day a new social network launches, but only if you use it (I was an early Periscope adopter and gained 1,000 followers on the first day because I did two broadcasts)

#22: Occasionally share other people’s content related to your niche to provide a variety of content for your audience

#23: Recognize the fact that social media is just one part of your business so you don’t spend too much time on social media

#24: Build relationships on social media

#25: Look through your interactions to see if one of your followers wants to interview you or have you as a guest blogger

#27: Contact people who have podcasts and guest blogs and offer your help (in the form of being a guest or contributor but do so with a nice tone since some people get a lot of these types of emails/social media posts)

#28: Look for methods to save as much time as possible on social media

#29: Pay extra money for social media tools if it means you save extra time

#30: Use HootSuite to do all of your social media activity instead of going on the actual social media sites (more productive since you don’t see the trending topics and other stuff)

#31: Write down important things that you learn about social media

#32: Create a blog about social media so you force yourself to learn something new about social media every day

#33: The avatar for all of your social media accounts must either be a picture of you or your company’s logo

#34: If you make the avatar for all of your social networks the same, your followers will have an easier time identifying all of your social media accounts.

#35: Keep up with the latest social media news so you can determine if you need to make a change in your social media strategy

#36: Focus on the social networks that yield the best results

#37: Ask yourself what small changes to your social media strategy can yield better results (you’d be surprised)

#38: Remind yourself what are you aiming for in your social media strategy

#39: Get all of the social media mobile apps and engage with your audience on the go

#40: Hire one virtual assistant for your social media strategy and see how the experience goes

#41: Don’t get consumed by social media

#42: Focus on growing a targeted audience instead of merely growing an audience of people who may not even be interested in your content

#43: NEVER, EVER, EVER buy fake followers because it will taint your reputation and possibly result in your account getting suspended

#44: Cross-promote your content so all of your social networks are promoting each other

#45: If something is working very well for you right now, ride with it until it stops working

#46: Don’t get distracted by anything when you are using social media

#47: The way you use social media determines how successful you become on it

#48: Look at your post engagement so see what type of content your audience likes the most

#49: Then give them more of that content

#50: Thank the people who share your content by mentioning them or commenting on the post

#51: Understand that social media is the best platform for indirect and an okay platform for direct sales

#52: Getting indirect sales on social media means building trust and providing valuable content that eventually asks for an email address

#53: Get help if you need it

#54: Implement what you learn because most people stop at the learning part

#55: Ask your favorite experts some quick questions that don’t require lengthy answers because some of them may then respond and offer advice

#56: Follow back to build relationships

#57: Follow people in your niche who are likely to follow you back

#58: Post at the optimal times throughout the day (these differ for each social network, but for Twitter, if you are tweeting once every 15 minutes, then it doesn’t matter for Twitter)

#59: Tweet once every 15 minutes

#60: Publish two YouTube videos every week

#61: Post three Instagram pictures per day

#62: Post four Facebook posts on your FB Page per day

#63: Send pins consistently throughout the day (at least one pin per hour)

#64: Don’t do everything from Tips 59-63 if it means you are going to overwhelm yourself with work

#65: Outsource some or all of the work related to Tips 59-63

#66: Promote your social networks on your blog

#67: Promote your new blog posts at least five times on your social networks on the day your blog posts get published

#68: Create multiple social media accounts on the same social network to promote your content

#69: Create a team of ambassadors that will share your content on social media no matter what

#70: Create evergreen blog posts (they will still be valuable years later) and promote them on your social networks often

#71: It is okay to share the same thing on social media more than once

#72: It is okay to have a posting cycle that results in you sharing the same thing dozens of times throughout the year

#73: Use Twitter polls to create a new type of social media engagement

#74: Ask your followers what they want and use their suggestions as blog post or product ideas

#75: Publish your blog posts on LinkedIn so they have a greater reach

#76: Use AdWords to advertise your YouTube videos at the rate of $0.01 per view

#77: Use Facebook advertising to get your Page likes for less than $0.01 per like

#78: Constantly monitor your social media ads so you see which ones are consistent and which ones need to get tweaked

#79: Share content from authority sites like Forbes, The Huffington Post, and others

#80: Get you know your followers by name and avatar

#81: Answer a need on social media that you believe most people are missing

#82: Tweet about your niche 95% of the time because if you go off-topic too much then people won’t stick around

#83: Valuable content is content that your audience believes is valuable, not what you believe is valuable (I have read many blog posts about running but never tweet them out since my targeted audience cares more about digital marketing blog posts)

#84: Be patient with your social media success (to achieve any type of success, you must be very patient)

#85: Don’t get discouraged when you get bad results because you can always make a change

#86: Use social media in a meaningful way

#87: See what other experts in your niche do on social media and mimic then while adding in your own style

#88: For any social network, focus on getting past that 1,000 follower milestone through almost any means necessary (no buying fake followers or doing things you’ll regret later)

#89: Don’t use too many social media tools but instead ask yourself which social media tools you can live without

#90: Statistics for your social media strategy let you see your results, where you are, and how you can improve

#91: While these statistics are good, if you spend too much time viewing them without taking action, then you are walking into analysis paralysis

#92: Take a one-day break from your social networks if the workload gets too stressful

#93: Pin a tweet to the top of your profile that promotes your landing page so your audience always sees it

#94: Use social media to promote product discounts

#95: If you become a part of an affiliate program, use social media to promote other people’s landing pages that have your affiliate ID.

#96: The focus of social media should be to build trust between you and your audience

#97: Write blog posts at a consistent and frequent rate so you have more to share with your followers

#98: Search your blog’s URL on social media to see who’s sharing it (not everyone will mention you when they share your content)

#99: Use the Twitter Advanced Search to find very specific users who you can then engage with

#100: Always have fun on social media

In Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed these 100 one-sentence social media tips. It took me a while to compile the list.

The main purpose of providing you with all of these tips is to give you a foundation. I understand that you won’t implement all of these tips in one day. However, the hope is that a few of these tips grabbed your attention more than others. The tips that especially grabbed your attention are the ones that you need to get started on.

If I had to implement these tips, I would look into growing my audience and outsourcing the work. Outsourcing the work allows you to explore the implementation of more of these tips (and eventually outsource that too).

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have any other tips for social media success? Which social network do you spend most of your time on? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Better Serve Your Social Media Audience

November 23, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

You’ve got followers. They see your posts and send out posts of their own. These followers are individuals just like you and me. Most people only know a small portion of their audiences. However, it is possible for any person on social media to understand their entire audience.

It’s a strong statement to say that one person can understand his/her entire social media audience. But even the people with millions of followers can know some things about everyone in their audiences.

So how does someone with a large audience come to know the people within their audience? Better yet, how does this happen in a time efficient manner? The people with millions of followers are not scrolling through one follower at a time, looking at profiles, and having conversations with all of those people. That would take too long.

You serve your social media audience by knowing what that audience wants. The way you know your social media audience is by breaking them up into categories. You break them into categories based on how they engage with you and your content.

Each time you send a post, look at how people engage with that post. Some of your posts will get more engagement than others. When you see that your social media posts about a certain topic always get more shares, then you know your audience wants more of that content.

Early in the game, I discovered that the tweets of mine that received the most attention contained Twitter tips. Blog posts geared towards social media weren’t far behind.

When I made this realization, I decided to write more blog posts about Twitter. That’s why many of my blog posts are geared towards Twitter. The decision paid off. Most of the blog posts I have written about Twitter have been tweeted hundreds of times. My blog post 70 Amazing Twitter Tips has been tweeted over 1,000 times.

I simply knew what my audience wanted and gave them more of it.

While I enjoyed seeing the success of my Twitter related blog posts, I knew that there was more to me than Twitter. I didn’t want this blog to turn exclusively into a Twitter blog. I also wanted to write blog posts about Facebook, Pinterest, productivity, and other business-related topics.

I decided to write blog posts about a greater variety of topics and share them to my social media audience. I saw how my audience engaged with the content I posted and then drew conclusions. My blog posts about Pinterest and blogging received more attention. Then, my productivity blog posts started to pick up engagement.

But inevitably, some blog posts stood out from the others.

I analyzed every blog post I wrote to see which ones got the most social shares. It wasn’t enough for me to know that blog posts geared towards productivity got more social shares. I needed to know specific information (i.e. do more people in my audience engage with my time management blog post or my goal achievement blog post?).

I am not trying to limit the topics I can write about. Rather, I am identifying the most desirable topics. That allows me to know what topics to focus on but also which topics I can incorporate into my other blog posts.

When I write a blog post about Twitter, should I incorporate goal achievement or should I incorporate finding the time to make it happen? If I incorporate both of them, which one do I focus on more? Answering these challenging questions allows you to write better content that your social media audience will love.

Quick Summary Of Categories

Here are some of the categories that my followers are in (it is possible for certain followers to be in more than one category):

Twitter advice

Social media advice

Pinterest advice

Blogging advice

Productivity

With this list, I know which blog posts I should write. I can also think of ways to combine certain topics together so I can appeal to a larger percentage of my social media audience.

Observe How Your Social Media Audience Engages With You

The larger your social media audience becomes, the more you can rely on the notifications tab to understand your audience. I look at the notifications tab to see what people say about my content. I see what people like (and dislike).

Checking every day allows me to see certain patterns develop. This is how I identify which of my blog posts are outperforming most of my other blog posts. This identification is critical for getting more blog traffic from Twitter.

In the beginning, I could tweet more frequently and automatically double my daily visitors from Twitter. Now I tweet once every 15 minutes. I don’t envision myself tweeting once every 7.5 minutes anytime soon. That’s too much even for me.

I get more traffic from Twitter by tweeting my most popular content more often. If this popular content continues to gain popularity, then I know this is a topic my social media audience is interested in. At that point, I begin to create a training course all about that topic.

That’s why Twitter Domination was the first training course I ever published on Udemy. At the time, people recognized me as a Twitter expert more than anything else.

Once you serve your audience and see how they respond, you get to know your audience. Then, you can create products based on what you know about your audience. This cycle ultimately results in you constantly serving your audience and providing them with more value as the days go by.

In Conclusion

Social media is the best platform to grow an audience without paying a penny. I had over 100,000 followers spread across my social networks before I started investing in tools and ads that I now use to exponentially grow my audience.

Regardless of your audience’s size and growth rate, you must learn more about the individuals within your audience. What type of content do they want to read? What do they need that you can provide? Answering these two questions will let you know how you can serve your audience better.

Serving your audience better allows you to know the people in your audience better. Once you serve your audience with free content that you know they like, you can then serve them with products related to those same topics.

How do you engage with your social media audience? What tips do you have for us so we can better serve our audiences? Do you know what your social media audience wants? Sound off in the comments section below.